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The Tony Award

Published: May 18th, 2011
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I never really cared for Tony Kushner.


To bestow an honorary award to a notorious Israel critic, especially by academia, is nothing new. Honorary awards and Nobel Peace Prizes seem to be increasingly synonymous with, at best, meaningless efforts, and, at worst, anti-Semitism as a prerequisite for the recipient. When I read that CUNY Chairman Benno Schmidt, Jr. decided to overturn the CUNY trustees’ decision to table the honorary award decision and honor Kushner, I wondered what took so long. The usual critters jumped on the bandwagon with Amy Goodman from the liberal global news program “Democracy Now!” pouncing on the news for days – as if Goodman hasn’t seen a piece of pro-Palestinian news in years. She must have been thrown off by Israel’s Yom Ha’atzmaut celebratory atmosphere – while the Syrian military was butchering its people. Even Yeshiva University’s Dr. Ellen Schrecker was so appalled that she threatened to return her CUNY honorary award if Kushner was not granted his.


Most disturbing, however, was that Israel defender Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, who voiced his concerns to the CUNY board in light of Kushner’s ignorance of Israel’s stellar human rights record, was being asked to resign by Ed Koch and CUNY board members. If it takes a Jew to uproot a Jew, there is no lack of them in the academic world.


Wiesenfeld should be granted the very same rights that the Kushner clan had been decrying: free speech. Initially, Wiesenfeld thought the board would just shelve his objection for the record and move on. But he found out that the Board of Trustees agreed with him and held the CUNY honoree to a higher standard of moral responsibility. The board acquiesced to Wiesenfeld’s logic, and rightfully voted to rescind the honor to Kushner because of his irresponsible anti-Semitic statements made as a public figure. Then the “academic discretionary free speech without responsibility” card was drawn, and the left cried foul. The board cowered to the blood libel, and the trustees profusely apologized for their callousness and restored the honor to Kushner, the infamous critic of Israel’s “apartheid” policies vis-à-vis Hamas and terrorism.


Wiesenfeld is fending for himself, while the vile, self-proclaimed freedom-fighting academics ironically seek to quash anything they don’t stand for. To Wiesenfeld’s credit, we now know who Kushner and Koch really are.


Please show your support for Jeffrey Wiesenfeld’s principled position by e-mailing the following CUNY board members: charlie.shorter@davisbrodyaedas.com; croman@cityhall.nyc.gov; dimartino@att.net; drhmorales@msn.com; ffostertolbert@gmail.com; joe@lhota.net; judah.gribetz@bingham.com; kathleen.pesile@mail.cuny.edu; kaympesile@aol.com; peter.pantaleo@dlapiper.com; philip@philipberryassociates.com; provost.cory@gmail.com; sam.sutton@aeny.com; Sandi.Cooper@csi.cuny.edu; vlancaster@mrbeal.com; wellingtonchen@yahoo.com; wellingtonzchen@gmail.com; and wiesenfeldjs@bernstein.com. NOTE: Also, please e-mail Secretary of the Board of Trustees Jay Hershenson at Jay.Hershenson@mail.cuny.edu.

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